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Swiss train ticketing shake-up: Passengers to be automatically charged lowest price

From the end of November 2019, passengers using the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) app will automatically pay the lowest price for their journey - regardless of which ticket they bought.

Published: 14 November 2019 10:38 CET

Swiss train ticketing shake-up: Passengers to be automatically charged lowest price

Photo: Depositphotos

The app will allow passengers to register at the start of the journey and disconnect wherever the journey ends.

Using the 'EasyRide' function on the SBB Mobile App, once the journey is completed, passengers will be billed for the cost of the journey – with the cheapest price automatically charged.

For instance, if the cost of the journey exceeds the cost of a daily ticket, the lower price of the daily ticket will automatically be billed rather than the cost of the complete journey.

READ MORE: How Swiss rail will improve punctuality

READ MORE: The apps you need for getting around Switzerland

Mirroring public transport cards or apps used in large cities elsewhere in the world, the SBB app will now be useable for public across the entire country – with passengers no longer having to buy a ticket for the journey.

The move was announced after a successful trial of the online app. The trial was launched in November 2018 for 15,000 users across Switzerland.

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In a press statement, the SBB said that while digital payment methods were the most commonly used in association with the app, the option of anonymous payment will still be available.

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Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

In an announcement slipped out just before Christmas Eve, the government said it had instructed the Swedish Transport Administration to stop all planning for the Borås to Gothenburg link, stop the ongoing work on linking Hässleholm and Lund.

“The government wants investments made in the railway system to first and foremost make it easier for commuting and cargo traffic, because that promotes jobs and growth,” infrastructure minister Andreas Carlson said in a press release. “Our approach is for all investments in the railways that are made to be more cost effective than if the original plan for new trunk lines was followed.”

Ulf Olsson, the Social Democrat mayor in Borås, told the TT newswire that the decision was “a catastrophe”.

“We already have Sweden’s slowest railway, so it’s totally unrealistic to try to build on the existing railway,” he said. We are Sweden’s third biggest commuting region and have no functioning rail system, and to release this the day before Christmas Eve is pretty symptomatic.”

Per Tryding, the deputy chief executive for the Southern Sweden Chamber of Commerce, complained that the decision meant Skåne, Sweden’s most southerly county, would now have no major rail infrastructure projects.

“Now the only big investment in Skåne which was in the plan is disappearing, and Skåne already lay far behind Gothenburg and Stockholm,” he said.

“This is going to cause real problems and one thing that is certain that it’s going to take a very long time, whatever they eventually decide. It’s extremely strange to want to first suspend everything and then do an analysis instead of doing it the other way around.”

The government’s instructions to the transport agency will also mean that there will be no further planning on the so-called central parts of the new planned trunk lines, between Linköping and Borås and Hässleholm and Jönköping.

Carlson said that the government was prioritising “the existing rail network, better road standards, and a build-out of charging infrastructure”.

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